


Just One Thing (That I Wish I'd Said)

by PersonalSpin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Date, Diners, Fluff and Humor, Kid Fic, Libraries, M/M, POV Multiple, Texting, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-03 20:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8728555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonalSpin/pseuds/PersonalSpin
Summary: Dorian and Bull get set up on a blind date together. It doesn't go as expected. They figure it out in the end though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dod123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dod123/gifts).



> I smooshed two of your prompts together, I hope that's alright. Merry Christmas! <3
> 
> Title comes from Newton Faulkner's 'Let's get Together'.

“Why does it look like the two of you are plotting?” Bull asked as he slid into the booth. Krem gave him a smirk but started to gnaw at the side of his thumbnail like he always did when he’d been rumbled.

“Plotting is such a strong word--” Krem started.

“If it fits, wear it,” Sera said. She leaned forward and gave Bull a serious look from the tips of his horns to the stained apron he always wore in his diner. She pushed aside what was left of her strawberry milkshake and folded her hands together on the table top. “You’re big. Got muscles on your muscles,” she said with all the seriousness of a interrogator.

“I get that a lot.”

“Don’t be an arsehole,” Krem said sharply, scowling at him.

Bull shrugged. “It’s nice to know I pass muster, I guess, but if I’d known I was about to be judged I would have worn a nicer shirt.”

“Not too nice,” Sera said. “He likes ‘em rough n’ ready looking. Like he’ll order the wine but it’s the beer he really likes, innit.”

Bull gave Krem a flat look. “Who’s he.”

Krem grimaced as he explained that he and Sera had been plotting -- and it was quickly apparent that the word very much fit -- to get Bull a date.

“No,” Bull said before Krem could get very much further.

Krem placed his palms flat on the table. “Chief.” Even when Krem had been a little kid just out of foster care, he’d only called Bull Tama once or twice; Bull had always been Chief, even when he had something important to say. Although everything important he’d had to say lately had been about joining the army. “You need to get laid.”

Bull sat back and crossed his arms. “No,” he said, even flatter this time. He’d almost prefer another argument about the army. “My sex life is not your business, Krem.”

“Yeah, _obvs_ ,” Sera said. Bull looked over at her, only to get her phone shoved under his nose. For lack of a better thing to do, he took it, squinting at the picture on the cracked screen. “Dorian. He’s a friend and I take care of mine. Your bits ain’t my business, but his bits are gathering cobwebs and it’s making him all pinchy.”

Bull’s first impression of Dorian was that he was beautiful. The picture was mostly silver eyes and eyeliner, the edge of a curled moustache. He was smiling at something Bull couldn’t see and couldn’t guess at, but it made Dorian’s face soft where otherwise he might have been formidably _Vinty_ with his razor cheekbones and sharp nose.

Giving in too easily would set a bad example for Krem, so Bull kept a neutral expression as he handed Sera back her phone. “You don’t think the Vint thing’ll be a problem?” he asked, and nudged Krem with his elbow when he immediately looked smug. “Put that away, I’m not saying yes.”

“Nah, he’s good. Like, really good,” Sera said, dismissing his concern with a sharp wave of her hand. “Don’t say it in his face though or he’ll get all smug n’ twirly.”

“And he can’t get a date on his own?” Bull asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Sera blew out her cheeks at Bull, looking a little put out. “He works hard,” she said, shrugging. Bull looked over at Krem who shrugged as well. Whatever Sera was hiding, and Bull had the uncomfortable feeling that she was, she hadn’t shared it with Krem. It must be either very bad or very weird. “Don’t make that squinchy face. He could spend all day looking down and shitting gold but he helps the little people. He’s good, yeah? And he’s so busy he sleeps standing. Shortstack says you get it.”

Krem snorted and mumbled something about ‘doesn’t know when to take a break’. Bull nudged him in the ribs again.

“You don’t have to smush bits but Dorian needs to go somewhere that ain’t home or work before it falls off.” Sera was leaning forward across the table at him, staring at him like she could will him into dating her friend, while Bull could feel Krem staring just as hard at the side of his face.

Bull rubbed his jaw and made a thoughtful face, like he had to seriously consider being set up on a date with a gorgeous Vint. He’d given in as soon as he saw that smile. “Alright,” he said, and his feigned reluctance couldn’t hold up against Sera’s immediate fistbump and Krem’s pleased little grin. It was worth going on a date with a stranger just for that.

***

Dorian flung another rejected shirt on top of the pile of unacceptable shirts on his bed. “This is a poor idea,” he muttered to himself, then louder so that Sera could hear him in the kitchen. “Why did I let you convince me this was a good idea? What temporary _madness_ \--”

“Oh _shush_!”

“Yeah, Dodo! Shush!”

Dorian felt a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a terrible influence on my daughter, Sera.”

There was a cacophony of fart noises, interspersed with giggling from Alicia and mad cackling from Sera, allowing Dorian enough time to choose the least terrible of all his clothes to wear to his date. A date Sera had procured for him out of pity for his disastrous love life. His pride was in tatters on the ground, but truthfully he hadn’t had a date in longer than he cared to think about. Dorian also couldn’t recall doing anything that would prompt Sera to get revenge, so he was almost positive this was a real date. Almost.

Alicia was sat at the kitchen table, eating heaping spoonfuls of brightly coloured sugar that made pretensions at being cereal, while Sera sat on the table and ate right out of the box. Dorian wrinkled his nose and held his hand out for the box. “Really, we have bowls and milk.”

Sera handed it over reluctantly, pouting as Dorian put the box away. “Don’t like it all gooshy. It needs crunch or it’s just mush, and the milk goes funny too.”

Dorian hummed noncommittally. Every week he swore he would buy something more healthy and every time the thought of his seven-year-old’s disappointment dissuaded him, and not the occasional bowl he snuck late at night when Alicia was asleep.

“This is all because you’re disgustingly happy with your own paramour,” Dorian said as he rooted around in the cupboards for his own breakfast. “If you had only stayed single and miserable like the rest of us, I wouldn’t be facing my current predicament.”

“Tellin’ Dagna you said that,” Sera crowed. “See if she lets you in on the bangers n’ flash now.”

Alicia perked up at Dagna’s name, twisting in her seat to look at Sera. “Can we go see Dagna in her workshop soon?”

“Sure, Ali. My two favourite nerd types,” Sera said, putting her arm around Alicia. “We’ll leave Dodo all lonesome, that’ll show him.”

“OK,” Alicia said, “but not for too long or I’ll miss him.”

Dorian smiled, feeling his heart warm in his chest as he brushed his child’s hair from her face. “Thank you, _figlia_. Anything exciting happening today?”

Alicia pulled a face. “Nah, just maths and history. I hafta sit next to this girl Nat and she doesn’t like maths, and--” she sniffled loudly and wiped her nose on her sleeve “--and she always talks, and Miss Trevelyan always tells her off--”

Dorian held out a tissue and Alicia gave him an unimpressed look she definitely hadn’t learned from him. Dorian tried to stare her down but broke almost immediately, handing Alicia the tissue so he could press the back of his hand to her forehead. “Are you coming down with something? You were sniffling all yesterday when I picked you up.”

“Candace kept sneezing while Miss Trevelyan was talking, and one time she sneezed like five times in a row, and Sam kept coughing and it was really loud. Esther said she was gonna throw up,” Alicia said through the tissue held to her face.

“Blow your nose, don’t just smell it,” Dorian chided gently. Alicia giggled but she did finally blow her nose, loud and wet. “She threw up? There must be a bug going around the school, are you sure you’re feeling alright? You should stay home if you’re unwell.”

Alicia’s face lit up before falling again, leaving the seven-year-old looking conflicted. “But I hafta help Nat with maths, and what if Sam really did throw up, and --”

“I gotcha, Ali,” Sera said, hopping down off the kitchen table, “figures you’d make up shi- stuff so you don’t have to meet Bull--”

“That’s still not a real name,” Dorian mumbled.

Sera planted her hands on Dorian’s shoulders to give him a serious look. “I fixed you up so you could have fun. You don’t have to do you like you used to, with the glitters n’ twirls n’ smirks. It’s still in you, innit, but get flowers and coffee, talk about nothing. Real adult stuff. You’re not tying yourself ‘til death so stop tying yourself up about shirts and colds.”

Dorian blinked at her. “Get flowers?”

“ _Duh_ , Dodo,” Alicia said, scraping her chair back from the table. “Everybody likes flowers. Now hurry up, we’re going to be _late_.”

Sera gave Dorian a last grin and two thumbs up as she ducked out, which Dorian tried to use to bolster his courage. Alicia kept up a running commentary in the car ride to school, interrupted only by Dorian’s largely unnecessary questions and her own sneezes until she tripped out of the car with a last sniffle and a goodbye wave. Dorian gave the crowd of seven-year-olds milling about the entrance a squint but it didn’t look smaller than any other day. Maybe Sera was right and it was just a cold.

Dorian was hopelessly distracted thinking about his date whilst he was supposed to be working, and ended up almost stamping his hand instead of the book at least half a dozen times. Sera had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about this Bull she’d set Dorian up with. “Ain’t fair you going in armed and ready when he’s got no britches,” she’d said, like Dorian was headed off to battle and not on a blind date. “Know him through him, innit.”

Which had a little merit to it, Dorian supposed, but it also left him in the uncomfortable position of being in the dark without even Facebook stalking as a recourse. Not that he’d ever done that with a man he’d been romantically interested in, and if he had it’d been justified. Dorian could never date a man who shared so many stupid jokes.

“Round and round, running and running. Running after smoke, running from your own tail.”

“Good afternoon, Cole,” Dorian said, looking up from the book he’d been staring at instead of stamping. Cole was standing at the front of the library desk, behind a stack of books that had materialised as quietly as he had. “Are those being returned or taken out?”

Cole blinked at him. “You look tired. Who are you thinking about?”

Dorian sighed, stamping the book in front of him and reaching for the top of Cole’s stack. “If you must know, I have a lunch date with a man whom a friend set me up with. It is... unnerving to know so little about him. I only truthfully know his name.”

Cole cocked his head. “Is lunch the meal or the time?”

“I don’t--” Dorian twisted around to look at the clock behind him and almost threw the rubber stamp. “ _Vishante Kaffas!_ How did-- Cole, excuse me, I must leave now if I want to make my date at all.”

“I hope you have fun,” Cole said, but Dorian only half-heard him as he grabbed his coat and ran for the door.

It was a brisk walk to the cafe Dorian was meeting Bull at, where they would get coffee and talk about nothing, as Sera had put it. There was a small florists on the way that Dorian had passed by dozens of times without ever noting before today, only for Sera’s piece of advice to make him stop outside the shopfront. It was a short moment of indecision, spent staring at a couple of lazy bees drifting between flowers, before steeling himself and walking in. If Bull didn’t like the flowers, it would save Dorian time. Alicia was right, _everybody_ liked flowers.

His hair was probably a mess and he was sweating unattractively, but Dorian made it to the cafe on the corner only fashionably late to his date. Dorian looked around for someone that could reasonably be called ‘Bull’, shifting the flowers from arm to arm. He felt faintly ridiculous standing there but didn’t know if he should order something and sit down or stay where he was where Bull could see him. Dorian had to squash down the impulse to curse his friend and himself for this whole ill-advised idea.

“Dorian, right?” Someone behind him asked.

Dorian took a deep breathe, pasting on a brilliant smile as he turned and prepared to charm his blind date. “Yes, and you must be--” He swallowed the rest of his sentence in shock. Bull, because he had to be, was a seven-foot tall, scarred, one-eyed _Qunari_. He could feel himself beginning to break out into a blush that would soon be red enough and bright enough to be seen from space. Dorian was helpless but to notice that Bull’s horns were as wide as his shoulders, which were _huge_ , and his muscles were astonishing. His shirt did absolutely nothing to hide them, clinging to every curve lovingly and only barely covering his broad chest. Dorian was struck by the very sudden, very strong urge to lick him.

“It’s OK, I’m a lot to take in,” Bull said, blinking very deliberately. It took Dorian a moment to understand that he was winking. “I take it Sera didn’t tell you about--”

“No, she didn’t,” Dorian said sharply. “About any of it. Not that--” Bull’s face had changed at Dorian’s tone, losing some of his playfulness. Dorian blew out a calming breath and held out his flowers. “I brought these for you. If you wanted them, of course.”

“Thanks, big guy,” Bull said, his smile recovering as he took the flowers from Dorian. “They’re pretty. I don’t remember the last time I got flowers from a date.” He sneezed suddenly, looking as caught by surprise by it as Dorian was.

“Please don’t tell me you’re allergic.”

“Nah, you’re good. I’m only allergic to--” Bull flinched back, almost dropping the flowers as he gripped his arm with a pained grimace. Dorian quickly learnt, as Bull had tried to tell him, that there had been a bee lingering amongst his flowers that was not best pleased by the muscular grey arm that had almost crushed it. Coincidentally, the only thing Bull was allergic to was bees.


	2. Chapter 2

Bull had been in uncomfortable situations during his long and colourful life, but the walk to Dorian’s car outside the library was definitely one of the more intensely awkward. The ride to the hospital was almost as bad as Dorian stared unblinking at the road without saying a single word. Fortunately by that point, Bull was too busy with his rapidly swelling arm to care.

The nurses at the Skyhold A&E were quick once they realised Bull’s arm was not surely that size or colour. Dorian trailed behind as Bull was hustled down a corridor and quizzed about his medical history, and at some point Bull noticed he’d gone from very purposely not looking at Bull to frowning at his phone. Shit, he had to let Krem know where he was.

“Hey, I need to call--”

“Is he with you?” one of the nurses asked, nodding at Dorian.

“Uh--”

“Bull,” Dorian said, looking up from his phone. “I have to -- I have a missed call, it might be important, can I--”

“Yeah, sure, duck out if you need--”

“Of course, thank you. I’m so sorry about--”

“It’s fine--”

“I can--”

Bull got pushed into a room by a nurse uninterested in watching the two of them stutter any more half-sentences at each other. A terrible end to one of the worst dates Bull had been on, if it even counted. Dorian didn’t reappear and Bull didn’t really expect to see him again.

When Bull was finally allowed to go home, many hours and with a few additional holes later, Krem bolted from the front room as soon as he set foot in the door. “So, you survived your date,” Krem said, trying to play off his concern while scrutinising Bull. He didn’t stick him with a needle, which made him a welcome change as far as Bull was concerned.

Bull grunted, lifting his arms, and Krem held out for half a second before ducking forward for a hug. He did, however, seem to be under the impression that it would be only a short hug. Bull’s kid was smarter than to struggle though as he rested his head on Bull’s pillowy bosom in defeat.

“You eaten yet, Krempuff?” Bull asked.

Grim grunted from the front room. “We’re very responsible!” Dalish yelled.

“We ordered pizza,” Krem mumbled into Bull’s chest.

Bull sighed. His kid was fed, watered and safe, so the day couldn’t be called a complete flaming wreck. “I’m headed for bed. You good?”

Krem was quiet for a moment. “Am I grounded forever?” he asked quietly.

“No, you’re not grounded.” Bull paused to pretend to think. “But if you even suggest a blind date ever again--”

“I hear you, and I’m never listening to Sera again. Go get your beauty sleep, old man.”

As soon as he was in his own bedroom, Bull’s shirt went in one direction and his jeans in the other. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

His phone’s frantic buzzing pulled him from a dreamless sleep. Bull couldn’t remember where he was for a moment, or why he was in bed so early, but then the day caught up to him and he groaned. The temptation was to roll over, pull the pillow over his head and go back to pretending the day hadn’t happened. It could be important, however. Bull rolled out of bed and over to where he’d flung his jeans, grumbling that it if it was anything less than an emergency he was putting whoever was texting him on dish duty.

‘You have to help me,’ the text preview read.

Bull flung his jeans across the room, cursing emphatically, and unlocked his phone. He only realised halfway through the text that it was from an unknown number but by then he was committed to helping them.

‘You have to help me. Alicia threw up at school and now she won’t stop coughing. She’s got a temperature, she can’t sleep, she’s turning her nose up at anything more solid than water. I’m an abysmal father for sending her to school when she’s ill, please help me.’

‘relax,’ Bull texted back, ‘breathe. make sure she gets plenty of fluids. water and juice are good. tea with lemon and honey will help her sore throat. is she coherent?’

‘Yes yes,’ he texted immediately. Bull snorted, imagining the panicked father clutching his phone after sending a text like that. ‘She won’t stop complaining about her throat, about her missed classes, her upset stomach and how gross all the food looks.’

Bull tried to imagine what he’d have wanted to hear when Krem was young and had caught the cold to end all colds. Days of miserable sniffling from a belligerent preteen had almost finished him off where Seheron and the Qun had failed. ‘if she gets dull or quiet, that’s when you worry. put her in front of the tv with a tub of ice-cream and her fav cartoons. kids are resilient, she’ll be fine. ].)’

‘Thank you. I’m sure she will be.’

Bull stood back up, his knees cracking on the way. It wasn’t too late, he should go see if his own kid was still up watching cartoons and if he wanted any help finishing a pint of ice-cream. His phone buzzed again as he went to put it on his night stand.

‘I realise you are not the friend I meant to text or else you would have known that there’s never a dull or quiet moment with Alicia.’ Bull chuckled, already planning his reply when they started typing again. ‘I’m indebted to you and your patience.’

‘not a problem. kids are hard when you’re on your own.’ When Bull didn’t immediately get a reply back, he figured he’d overstepped. He didn’t think he was wrong though. That sense for things apparently never faded, no matter how long it’d been since he’d needed it.

Krem was in his room, watching Netflix on his laptop and only sparing a moment to wave at Bull over the top of the screen before going back to his show. Grim and Dalish had left the pizza boxes strewn about the front room with the remains of several chewed crusts, because Grim was a terrible influence on Bull’s kid. Bull took them to the kitchen and left them piled up on the kitchen counter, which was as close to cleaning as he could manage in that moment. They’d also left an IOU scrawled on the back of one of the boxes. One of these days he was actually going to go through with all their IOUs, and on that day nugs would fly.

When Bull had left the Qun, his Chargers had been all he’d had. He’d had money saved away, too well trained not to prepare for the worst case scenario, but that would have meant fuckall if he hadn’t had people depending on him. They needed him like the Qun never had; Bull had met all of them when they were broke and desperate, some of them homeless, and in trouble with the law in Skinner’s case. He’d helped them and in return he’d gotten the most determinedly loyal group of semi-professional employees and friends any man could ask for. Bull owed his men his life, but he still grouched that he paid his boys well enough to buy their own pizza, dammit.

When Bull got back to his room, his phone was lit up with a reply from the wrong number.

‘It’s the hardest thing in the world. Good night, and thank you.’

***

Bull’s phone buzzed while he was behind the grill and without a hand free to look, but he still grinned like an idiot. He’d asked after the wrong number’s kid the next morning to see if his advice had helped at all; Alicia was still alive, still complaining, but her temperature had gone down and the cartoons had mollified her a little. That was supposed to have been the end of it, but if Bull had expected the wrong number not to keep talking he was sorely mistaken.

For starters, Hot Stranger had thanked Bull like he’d pulled his kid from a burning building, instead of just being a sympathetic ear and some advice at the right time. He’d gotten... _effusive_ , enough that Bull was very definitely blushing as he texted back that it was no problem, really. At some point Bull had figured out he was fucking with him but not before he also figure out he was fun to talk to, with a sharp tongue he wasn’t afraid to use and with a wicked sense of humour to go with it. It was a little hot.

Bull would’ve gone for that on any other day and with any other person, but he hesitated with Hot Stranger. There was something novel about having somewhere he could go to talk about what a fucking brat Krem had been that day, or simply marvel at the fact this clever, hard-working kid was his. All of Bull’s friends knew Krem; most of them worked with him in the diner. Bull was also starting to understand why Sera and Krem might have thought a blind date with a stranger was a good idea.

It probably should have made Bull feel old, talking with another parent about their kids. Krem would have laughed himself sick if he knew, before he maybe felt a little aggrieved that Bull had anything to complain about.

Bull had been texting Hot Stranger for a week when Sera banged open the door to the diner, yelling a greeting that the Chargers returned with gusto. Bull levelled a look at her when she turned to him with a shit-eating grin. “You’re still coming to my place, after a date like the one you set me up on?”

Sera’s expression was like performance art as she grimaced, stuck out her tongue and made a farting noise all at the same time. “Not on me.” She pointed a sharp finger at Krem, who was supposed to be taking orders at the other side of the diner and not studiously ignoring Sera. “Oi, shortstack, how come your dad’s going all _blurgh_ over something’s small points?”

“How was I supposed to know your Tevinter was going to try and kill him?” Krem yelled back over his shoulder.

“Ain’t Qunari supposed to take arrows to all their squish and keep going?”

“No propaganda in my diner,” Bull growled, shaking a spatula at the pair of them and scowling theatrically. Krem rolled his eyes as only teenagers could when unimpressed with their parental figures; that eyeroll never failed to make Bull’s day. “Krem, get your arse back to work. Sera, shut up and sit down while I make your milkshake.”

“Fries too!” Sera yelled as she plunked herself down at the table she had more or less claimed as her own.

“Depends, you planning on paying for them?” Bull asked as he heated up the fryer.

Sera tipped her chair back until it was precariously perched on the edge of tipping over. “Business is slow. I’m good for it.”

It was something of an open secret that Sera’s ‘business’ was running with the Red Jennies, causing trouble for Skyhold’s richer neighbourhoods while making sure that the kids in the poorer areas had nice things like food and the occasional authentic Louis Vuitton. If she said she was good for something, it meant that sometime in the next week Bull could expect to find the tip jar stuffed full of fifties.

Sera rocked on her chair and kept up a running conversation with half the people in the diner. The regulars joined in until Bull’s diner was filled with at least three different conversations all being conducted at a shout. Bull liked the noise, and the heat of the grill on his skin, the smell of good food. On a bad day, his diner kept the jungles of Seheron far away, safely across the Nocen Sea and far from his mind.

When Sera spotted Bull leaving his kitchen to bring her order, she made grabby-hands and let out a whine like she was starving. She snatched the milkshake from him as soon as she could and took a noisy slurp, smacking her lips in satisfaction. “Nice,” she said, giving him a thumbs up. Bull snorted and made to go back to his kitchen, but Sera caught his arm. “Oi, big man. Sit.” Sera kicked out the chair across from her and pointed at it. “Gonna chit n’ chat, us. Talk and shite.”

Bull crossed his arms. “You know I’m at work right now?”

Sera rolled her eyes. “Oi, cookies!” she yelled towards the back. “Need ta borrow the bossman!”

“Fuck off, Chief, take a fucking break!” Stitches shouted back, to the general agreement of the other Chargers.

Bull sat in the chair, though he stole a fry from Sera’s plate on principle. “What’re we talking about?” he asked as Sera pulled the plate closer to her and dunked a fry into the milkshake.

“Dorian says--”

Bull waved off her apology, and Dorian’s. “It’s nobody’s fault. ‘Cept maybe the bee’s.”

Sera punched him in the arm, her bony knuckles bouncing right off with a pained noise. “Bees are the _shite_.”

“Tell Dorian no hard feelings.” Bull was too old to be stung that Dorian hadn’t said it himself. He already gave him the benefit of the doubt that Dorian really had gotten a phone call and that it really had been important. “If he wants to come by and have a milkshake some time, he’s welcome to.”

“Big and big,” Sera crowed, kicking her feet up on to the edge of Bull’s seat. Bull shrugged. Unfortunately, Bull was reminded why he didn’t take breaks when he heard a poorly stifled giggle from behind him, which was half his staff leaning out of the kitchen and smirking like they were all in on a secret. Sera levelled a finger at the lot of them. “Spill.”

“Chief’s got a new lover,” Dalish trilled as she walked past with a tray of drinks.

Bull tossed her a rude gesture over his shoulder. “Is that all it takes with you lot? A little texting? The Qun’s got more romance than that, you at least get to meet the Tamassran face-to-face.”

“It’s not faces we’re talking about,” Skinner said, leering at him from behind the counter. Grim pulled at the waistband of his jeans and mimed pointing a camera down the front of them. They all cracked up and Sera nearly snorted milkshake out of her nose. It took a few pointed threats Bull had no intention of following through on for them to go back to the kitchen, but not before they were all red in the face and wheezing from laughing so hard.

“So, you got someone new looking out for your small points?” Sera said once she’d recovered and chewing on a fry that was more condiments than potato. “Who’s it then?”

Bull thought about not answering but didn’t reckon Sera would let him get away with it. “Wrong number, started talking with them and just kept going. Don’t know their name.” Bull tried to say more but Sera interrupted him with loud farting.

“That’s a pisspoor way of getting your points seen by anybody. Is it coz the Qun don’t do names? Your kid might be on to something.”

“I often am,” Krem said as he walked up to the table, tucking his pad into his apron as he leaned on Bull’s shoulder. “What am I right about now?”

“He’s shite at dating, forgetting important bits when he’s chit n’ chatting.” Krem thumped Bull in the shoulder while Sera leaned forward to impart her wisdom. “Here you gotta give ‘em something to yell when you’re doing them favours. On their bits.”

“Krem, cover your ears.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“If you’re doing it right, they aren’t yelling words at all,” Bull said, grinning.

Sera cackled while Krem made a deeply disgusted noise. “You better wait until I’m not home before you invite this new guy over and do anything that involves yelling,” he said, making to move away before Bull laid a heavy arm over his shoulders and pulled him back in. “I don’t need to hear that from you.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, kiddo,” Bull said, ruffling Krem’s hair to get him to grouch. “Not really looking to get involved with anyone until after a room full of grey-faced suits decide I can stay in the country.”

“Need any help with that?” Sera asked. Bull was very certain he didn’t want any of Sera’s kind of help; things like citizenship weren’t helped by putting custard in shoes. He said as much, which earned him an unimpressed eye roll from Sera, but Krem’s reaction caught Bull’s attention. He’d gone stiff before elbowing Bull hard to let go of him, stepping away so he could give the floor a vicious glare.

“Hey, Kreme brûlée, you alright there?” Bull asked, half getting out of his seat.

“What does it matter if you’ve talked to them or not?” Krem muttered, not looking up. His hands had curled into tight fists and his shoulders were up around his ears, brittle and angry. “It’s not like you’re going to get kicked out of the country, right? That’s what you told me. You said there was no chance that you were gonna have to leave. That’s what you said.”

“Krem--”

“Coz otherwise you’d have to go back to Par Vollen, where they don’t let people like _you_ look after people like _me_.”

“I’m not going back to Par Vollen,” Bull said quietly. He placed a hand gently on Krem’s shoulder and for a moment he looked like that kid out of foster care again, staring up at Bull with such tentative hope. Shit, he hadn’t even known this had been eating at Krem, or that he’d been worrying about it at all. “I promise, you’re not going anywhere you don’t want to, coz I’m not leaving. OK?”

Krem was silent for a moment before he shook Bull off with a twitch of his shoulders. “It wouldn’t even matter if you’d let me join the army. You could go wherever the fuck you wanted then.”

Bull let his arm drop back to his side as he took a fortifying breath. “We’ve talked about this, Krem.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Krem tugged his apron over his head, balling it up in his fist as he stalked towards the kitchen. “I’m headed out for my break, if you care.”

Bull let him go, because he didn’t think he could actually stop him without causing a scene in his diner. He left him alone for the better part of an hour, only for Stitches to tell him that he’d disappeared through the back door and gone home already. Bull wanted to be mad but mostly he was pissed his own kid had caught him by surprise and he was stuck playing catch up. He should be better than this, Krem shouldn’t be holing himself up in his room like he was a kid again.

Lying in bed that night, there was only one person Bull wanted to talk to. He pulled his phone out, the screen the only light in his room, and started to type.


	3. Chapter 3

‘how do i tell my kid i might get deported?’

Dorian hadn’t seen the message until this morning -- and then he’d had his hands full just getting Alicia into her school uniform and out the door. The car ride to school didn’t allow much in the way of distraction with Alicia narrating her day and demanding nothing but his full attention. Dorian had to leave his newest friend on his own until he was parked outside the library, with five minutes before he had to walk through the front doors and start working. Unfortunately, he had no idea what to text back, and so Dorian was forced to think fast.

‘Another ex-pat? I sympathise.’

Dorian smashed his phone into his cheek, grimacing at his own rampant stupidity. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he said for good measure. One wrong number and a bit of prescient advice and he thought he could sympathise. For all he knew, whoever was on the other end of the wrong number was a Seheron war criminal, or an ax murderer, or the sort of crazed Tal-Vashoth they always warned you about back home.

‘thanks,’ they texted back, apparently more forgiving of Dorian’s blunder than Dorian was. ‘i’ve been telling him there’s no chance it’s gonna happen but it could. i want him to know i’ve made plans to make sure he’s taken care of if i get sent back north.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s a chance he could be grateful for your foresight?’ Dorian texted.

‘nah. he’ll take it like it’s a certainty and get mad that i’ve been lying to protect him. he’s not wrong dammit.’

Dorian sighed. ‘I thought as much. From what I remember of my own troubled teenage years, gratitude was not a feeling that visited me very often.’

‘my teenage years were very strict. not much rebelling to be had by anyone. i don’t know how to deal with it,’ they texted. Dorian was thrown off for a moment and couldn’t think why until he realised this was perhaps the first time the Mystery Man had admitted he didn’t have a course of action. Dorian had been quick to pick up that his new friend could and did plan for absolutely everything and so was rarely surprised. That he admitted to being stymied by his own child was cause for thought.

‘Well then, you are talking to an expert,’ Dorian texted back with more confidence than he felt. His formative years in Tevinter weren’t something Dorian generally looked back on with fondness. ‘There wasn’t a rule I could find that I didn’t then contrive to break quickly and spectacularly.’

‘i don’t want it to be a thing where we both get angry and nothing gets said. we’ve been having a lot of those lately.’

Dorian tapped his phone against the steering wheel, looking out at the library parking lot for inspiration. What would he have liked to hear in this situation? Should he be facing separation from his friends and family, what would comfort Dorian? He decided that the truth was his best possible option. ‘Then it falls to me to be the bearer of bad news. You are very likely headed for an argument however you choose to tell him. It will not be fun, it might even be the worst one you’ve ever been a part of. Perhaps if you are lucky neither of you will say something in the moment very regrettable, and that you were actually listened to.’

‘dammit,’ Mystery Man texted back, and then nothing.

Dorian didn’t know what else to say that wasn’t a platitude or an untruth. He stepped out of his car, tucking his phone into his back pocket for now. The library always had something that needed doing, someone that needed help finding a book or figuring out how to work the computers. There wasn’t time to think of his own inability to give advise, not when he had so many books that needed stamping and returning. That didn’t mean it wasn’t on his mind all day. Dorian therefore wasn’t at all surprised when Cole appeared from seemingly nowhere.

“You’ve been speaking to him a lot,” Cole said, jumping up onto the desk and crossing his legs.

Dorian wrinkled his nose and thought of telling him to get off, but at least he wasn’t sitting on any books so he was already better behaved than Sera. “Indeed I do,” Dorian said, “he’s some of the best conversation I’ve had in ages -- with no offence meant to you, of course.”

How far had his standards plummeted that _conversation_ was what he now looked for in a paramour. Not that he was considering him in a romantic light; his date with Bull had illustrated perfectly why romance was not an option for him right now. Maybe in another ten years, when Alicia was older, even if the thought made something inside him grow heavy and despondent.

Cole’s pale eyes were focussed entirely on Dorian in what had been unsettling the first several times. “Are you friends?”

“I suppose so,” Dorian said, lowering his stamp slowly. “I’m a little out of practice but talking seems like a good way to make friends.”

“But you don’t know his name.” Dorian looked up at Cole but he was focussed elsewhere, looking far away. “You know a lot about him, but how can you be said to know him? I always thought names were important.”

“I’ve known people for years and I don’t think I could be said to know any of them very well,” Dorian retorted, scrubbing at his eyebrow. “But I take your point. _Kaffas_ , I don’t know what the man looks like but I know he loves puns to a disgusting degree and is more than a little obsessed with dragons. I feel I’m doing this backwards.”

Cole lit up, smiling wide under the brim of his huge hat. “Not backwards. You can meet him, ask his name when you see his face.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea, Cole,” Dorian said dryly. Cole looked immediately crest-fallen, which felt a little like denying a puppy a treat. “Set myself up on a blind date? Need I remind you that the last one I went on, my date ended up in the hospital after I inadvertently tried to kill him? No, perhaps it’s better that I don’t ever meet him or I’d run the risk of ruining this as well.”

Cole frowned down at the desk between his feet, fingering the brim of his hat. “I don’t think you were made to be alone. You love so much and so generously, it seems wrong to say you choose not to.”

“It’s a sad part of growing up,” Dorian said, feeling old all of a sudden. “Sometimes you don’t get to do what you want but what you must. Sometimes your duty is to your family.” A chill lanced down Dorian’s spine, leaving him breathless and ill all of a sudden with a heavy feeling of dread in his stomach. Dorian looked over at Cole but the boy had disappeared, with only his muddy footprints on the desk left behind. He looked at the dirt in silence for a moment before his thoughts returned to him and he looked around his desk for a handkerchief. The harder he tried to ignore the dread dragging at his gut, however, the heavier it became, until Dorian could only sit back and hold his head in his hands.

Dorian hadn’t felt like this since his father had died. No doubt he was responsible for putting those words in his head; they felt an echo, or perhaps Dorian had simply been subjected to so many lectures on _family_ and _duty_ that Halward had become indelibly connected to the words in his mind. He didn’t deserve to be thought of in the same sphere as family, not after everything he’d put Dorian through, but that was an unfortunate side effect of being raised by the man and growing up with the crippling fear of disappointing him.

He didn’t want that for Alicia, to be told she was anything less than she was and never, never to think it. Dorian would make sure it never happened, and if he had sacrifice any semblance of a love life to do it, he would.

That day in the library was inordinately slow as the minutes overstayed their welcome and the hours stretched to breaking point. Cole was drifting through the shelves, picking up books as he went; Dorian could never be sure whether he was tidying the shelves, since he didn’t work there, or rearranging them according to his own mysterious system. He’d made the mistake of asking once and Cole had only blinked up at him and said he was putting the books where they needed to go, whatever that meant. Dorian tried to avoid eye contact and having that soft, sad look directed at him by talking with the other people that came and went, but he was always aware, at the back of his mind, of the pale-eyed boy wreaking quiet havoc in his stacks.

Cole finally came back to the front not long before the library closed, although all he did was stand quietly by the desk as Dorian made a last ditch effort to ignore him. “Yes, Cole?” he asked eventually, not unkindly.

“You deserve nice things too, Dorian,” Cole said, placing a thin paperback on the desk. "Be kind to yourself."

Dorian watched him leave before picking up the book he’d decided he needed to see. “Really,” Dorian said, not sure if he was amused or chagrined as he looked over the copy of _Persuasion_ he’d been gifted. Dorian’s love of romance novels was a poorly kept secret, although he hadn’t read this one. He told himself it was because he didn’t actually object to the reading suggestion that he brought the book home. Alicia asked him to read aloud when she saw the two elegant ladies on the front, but quickly became bored with the lengthy details and careful manoeuvring of Marcher society. Dorian, growing up in Tevinter’s upper echelons and used to the careful consideration of who you could stand to be seen associating with, stuck with it a little longer.

It reminded him of Rilienus. He’d been Dorian’s first love, despite and probably because he was so bad for Dorian. Rilienus encouraged all of Dorian’s vices, and Dorian returned the favour. They were terrible together, in retrospect, but Dorian loved him as well as he knew how.

Orlais never seemed further, or less necessary, than when Rilienus left to study in Val Royeux. It was sudden and heart-breaking, and Dorian coped poorly. He wanted to go with him, he wanted to ask, but Dorian had been studying with Alexius by then -- good work, and important. If Rilienus had said yes, Dorian didn’t think he’d have the strength not to leave with him.

Dorian could keenly remember how he’d felt when Rilienus had left Minrathous, and how the feeling had returned tenfold when he’d returned a year later with a pretty Orleisian bride. He’d been sick to his stomach with loathing, but not with Rilienus. He’d hated himself as viciously as when he’d been whoring himself in Minrathous’ slums, before Rilienus had come along with his attention, his sex and drugs. Rilienus had been the only thing he knew that made him happy, even if only for a little while.

They’d met only once since Rilienus got married, at a high society soiree where they both drank too much and talked for hours. It had been like Rilienus had never left -- good, so good Dorian could almost forget his pretty little wife currently flitting around the room. Dorian had almost asked again. _Take me back, let it be like it was_. Rilienus would have said yes, Dorian knew; he could see it in the dark look in his eyes, the way he watched Dorian’s lips, the curve of his waist, and how utterly he ignored his wife.

He could almost forget why his father lived in ignorance and disappointment. For one brief moment, Dorian considered being Rilienus’ secret, to be indulged in dark corners and behind closed doors. It was the only possibility, after all the trouble Rilienus had gone through to secure a marriage becoming of him. However, Dorian wasn’t content to be anyone’s secret, especially not someone who would have him that way.

Dorian hadn’t felt that way about Rilienus in a long time, but not before he’d wasted a lot of tears on him. The sick feeling in his stomach solidifed and Dorian suddenly couldn’t countenance the idea of not asking. It had been ten years; if Dorian were to ask his mystery man, what would happen if he said yes? No answer could be worse than repeating his old mistakes over and over again, and so Dorian put down his book and reached for his phone.

‘Would you like to meet for coffee?’


	4. Chapter 4

_One Month Later_

“So, I was thinking, Amatus, about Krem,” Dorian began, and Bull immediately groaned and tried to roll away. Dorian slid over and straddled him, stretching his thighs wide over his hips. Any other day Bull would have gone for that, but tonight Bull leaned back until his horns scraped the headboard.

“ _Kadan_ , no talking about the kids in bed,” he groaned, squinting at him with his good eye. Out of habit, his hands wrapped around Dorian’s thighs and squeezed gently.

Dorian cupped his face, brushing over the scars of his lost eye. He smiled softly. “We aren’t in bed. We are, obviously,” he said, frowning when Bull began to chuckle. “We aren’t having sex and so we should be free to talk about them. So, I’ve been thinking--”

“Have you?” Bull said with a cheeky grin.

Dorian tweaked Bull’s ear with a pout. “What are yours, and Krem’s I suppose, plans for when your citizenship meetings come up? I know they happen over a weekend but not much beyond that.”

Bull scratched his cheek and shrugged, jostling Dorian. “I thought Dalish and Skinner could look out for him -- ‘cept Skinner’s moving across town and Dalish is still down with the flu.” Bull placed his hand around Dorian’s hips, his thumb fitting neatly into the hollow there and the exact shape of the shadow of a bruise he’d left the other night. “What were you thinking?”

“He could-- nevermind, it was a stupid thought,” Dorian said. He tried to extricate himself from on top of Bull, and when Bull gently held him in place, grabbed up his book and opened it to a random page. He was blushing furiously, he knew, and looked patently ridiculous sat there with the book in his hands, but perhaps if he wished hard enough Bull might take the hint and not pry. And maybe he’d look outside and see nugs flying by.

“What was it?” Bull asked, and when Dorian refused to stop hiding, plucked the book from his hands. Dorian was taken aback for all of a second before he aimed a scowl at Bull. “You didn’t bring it up just to run away. What’s on your mind?”

“I was simply thinking, that is, that Krem could spend the weekend with us at the library.” Dorian twisted the end of his moustache nervously, not quite looking Bull in the eye. “Not an attractive option, perhaps, but I thought it better than being alone the whole time or cooped up in the house. He could find a quiet corner to read, or text his friends, and pretend I don’t exist.”

“Krem likes you fine,” Bull said. Dorian gave him a flat look. “He’s got a complicated relationship with other Vints,” Bull amended. “It’s not personal.”

“It’s not myself I worry for,” Dorian said quietly, focussing on his hands in his lap rather than look up at Bull’s face. “Alicia likes to come to the library at the weekends and join in with the groups that meet there. For any one person, Alicia is a lot, but for a teenager, she might--”

Bull kissed the worry wrinkle between his brows, drawing Dorian into a hug that left him engulfed in Bull’s arms and surrounded by his scent. “Hey, _kadan_ , easy. It’s just Krem. You were talking away in Tevene with him this morning, his history teacher was full of shit, remember?”

“He was -- we were.” Dorian deflated, flopping over onto Bull hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. Bull stroked along his back and scratched through his hair, massaging out the tension until Dorian had melted into a warm puddle against him.

“Feeling better now?” Bull asked, and Dorian could only answer with a contented murmur into his shoulder. “We can ask him -- and Alicia. We have time.”

In theory, inviting Krem to spend time with him and Alicia in a place where he could disappear into a corner if needed was a good one. In reality Dorian had to deal with Krem slouching along behind them up the library steps, looking distinctly uphappy to be within even spitting distance of the building, while his own daughter looked at Dorian like he’d contracted insanity and she was worried it was contagious.

Dorian sighed. “ _Figlia_ , go set up the tables for the writer’s group, please.”

“Sure, Dodo.” Alicia ran over to the desk, grabbing up the signs before going over to the tables. Dorian set his bag and coat down behind the desk, turning to Krem to take his coat only to see he’d already wandered into the library with his eyes firmly fixed on his phone. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour on this occasion, Dorian left him to it as he got ready for the library to open. He was usually pretty good about spotting regulars as they came in, and would stop to speak to most of them; most of them didn’t take especial delight in catching him off-guard.

“Hey, Sparkler, what’s new in your life?” Varric said, grinning up at Dorian over the edge of his desk.

“Oh,” Dorian said, “not much.”

Varric, Maker damn him, knew exactly where to go to get the truth. Or more accurately who. Dorian scowled at Alicia but his traitorous daughter gave Krem a significant look. He was leaning against a bookcase away from the desk and wearing that carefully studied look of boredom teenagers were expert at.

Varric’s eyebrows just about rose to his hairline. “Hey, Qunlet,” he called to Krem, who looked up and blinked in surprise, “fancy meeting you here.”

Krem pushed himself off the bookshelf and shuffled over, darting looks at all of them. “So this is the hot date you have every Saturday?”

“Sure is. You wanna join in?” Varric asked with a shit-eating grin.

Dorian rolled his eyes and thumped him on the shoulder with a book. “I should have known that a reprobate like you would know Bull.”

“I go to his diner sometimes when I need a little inspiration. You ever try his burgers? You’re missing out, Sparkler.” Varric had a gleam in his eye when he looked at Dorian though, like he was considering him and Bull together. Dorian held up his book again with a warning expression and Varric backed off, his hands up and chuckling. He still had that worrying light though, like he was getting ideas.

Dorian made a frustrated noise, putting his abused book back on the desk. “Varric does a small writing workshop on Saturday mornings. It’s quite well attended, for some reason which eludes me.”

“Must be my sparkling personality,” Varric said with a cheesy wink. “C’mon, Qunlet, pull up a chair instead of standing there brooding and holding up the architecture.”

Krem grumbled something reluctant but shuffled over to the tables Alicia had set up, who was beaming Varric. She leaned in conspiratorially, which looked a little goofy given that they were more or less the same height. “His dad and my dad like like each other.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me everything, Scribbles.”

Dorian pretended not to hear his daughter tell Varric everything that had happened to her that week while she pulled her notebook from her bag. Varric listened to all of it, humming at the right moments and nodding as he looked over his writing, but he put it down when Alicia started talking about how Dorian and Krem’s dad were friends.

“This a new development? He didn’t tell me he was friends with anyone new.”

“Nah, they’ve been talking for ages,” Alicia said, taking out her pencils and arranging them by colour. “But he only learnt his name when they already knew each other really well and when they decided to meet, Dodo says. They see each other all the time now, and me, and Krem.” She pointed at Krem, who had sunk down in his chair until his arse was mostly hanging off the seat.

“They won’t shut up about each other,” Krem groused, squinting over at Dorian. Dorian, for lack of a better response, gave him a little wave, which earned him a reluctantly amused snort and eye roll.

“Good,” Alicia said with conviction, having not seeing the little interaction. “You should talk to your friends, and about them, and if you really like them you should talk about them a lot.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Krem asked, before biting his lip with a look like he hadn’t meant to say that. Alicia’s eyes went wide and she looked over at Dorian, who no doubt looked just as lost for a response as she did. There was a long, awkward pause where nobody knew quite what to say, when Varric pushed his reading glasses up onto his forehead and gave Krem an assessing look.

“Scribbles is a natural storyteller. If she talks a lot, it’s only because she has a lot to say.” Varric turned to Alicia. “You been working on that story from last week at all?” Alicia went back to her notebook, flicking through the colourful pages to her latest story, and Krem’s shoulders slumped. He mumbled something too quietly for Dorian to hear, but Varric passed him a pen and a blank page from his own notebook. “There you go, Qunlet.”

“Why’re you calling him, Qunlet?” Alicia asked. Dorian immediately cringed.

“It’s what they call baby Qunari,” Varric said slowly, glancing over at Dorian. “On account of his dad, Bull.”

“Is Bull really your dad?” Alicia looked at Krem with her face screwed-up in suspicion, taking in his less than statuesque height and the lack of horns or grey skin.

“Is Dorian yours?” Krem snapped.

Strangely enough, Alicia lit up. “Oh, was your daddy friends with Bull? And when he got ill Bull said he would look after you, and then he died and Bull adopted you?”

“Sure,” Krem grunted, somehow sliding even further down in his seat as he became aware of Dorian and Varric attempting to communicate with him by stares alone. Alicia looked down at her pencils, chewing on her lip, while Krem frowned at the table with a recalcitrant little moue.

“Do you want a pencil, maybe?” she asked, looking back up at Krem, her eyebrows scrunched together in the middle.

“Sure.”

After that, the rest seemed easy. Dorian made sure he always stayed by the tables, filing books and rearranging shelves, while the other writers started arriving and taking their seats. Alicia chatted with the university students and aspiring writers who came every week for a little of Varric’s wisdom, in his words, and Krem made a valiant attempt at joining in with the writing. The two hours passed by without incident, and Dorian even managed to be in his seat at the front desk when Varric finished packing up his things and walked over.

“You know it isn’t--”

“I know, Bull informed me that it wasn’t personal,” Dorian said. Krem and Alicia were still over at the tables, though the writing had given way to doodling. They’d seemed to reach a more comfortable point with each other that made Dorian’s heart do something complicated in his chest. Alicia talked at Krem without pause while Krem bore it with a small smirk, interrupting only to critique Alicia’s doodles. Dorian couldn’t hear what he said but it was apparently outrageous enough to make his daughter squawk in indignation.

“Tell the Iron Lady hi from me,” Varric said, waving over his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t have to if you stopped running away before she even got here!” Dorian yelled after him.

“Dodo, is it time for lunch yet?” Alicia called to him. Trying to impress her with the importance of being quiet in the library had been a lost cause from the beginning; Dorian considered it a victory if she only yelled a handful of times.

“Here, Krem,” Dorian said, holding up a bill. Krem took it but looked between him and Alicia with clear confusion. “Go with Alicia to the deli on the corner. She’ll know what she wants, and get yourself something too. You can join in with the next group once you get back.”

Krem grunted and stuck the bill in his pocket. “It’s not story-time for babies, is it?”

Dorian smirked, giving his moustache a self-satisfied twist. “Something like that. Do hurry though, Madame de Fer enjoys punctuality.”

The pair of them left and a minute later Madame de Fer herself arrived, striding into the public library the same way she might enter a business meeting, effortlessly taking control of a room simply by being in it. “Good afternoon, Vivienne,” Dorian said.

“And to you, darling,” Vivienne said, taking off her coat and folding it over her arm. “I take it from the lack of chatter that Alicia is not joining us today?”

“She’s gone to get lunch.”

“By herself?” Vivienne gave him a shrewd look. “You’re keeping secrets, Dorian, you know I can’t allow you to keep me in the dark.”

“I’ve met someone. His son is taking her. They -- I think they’re getting along,” Dorian said, trying not to sound as hopeful as he felt and not doing very well by the way Vivienne’s face softened.

“Then I look forward to meeting the young man,” Vivienne said as she strode over to the tables, sitting there like she was preparing to hold court, which was not far from the truth. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for keeping your paramour a secret, however, but you can begin to make amends by telling me everything now.”

“Of course.”

When Krem and Alicia walked into the library, holding their half-eaten sandwiches, Vivienne had been joined by most of her court and the group session was well under way. Alicia beamed as soon as she saw her and ran over, while Krem followed more slowly, wrinkling his nose at the number of pensioners sat around knitting. “You run a knitting thing?” he asked Dorian.

“I do, actually,” Vivienne said, rising from her chair gracefully. Krem looked like he didn’t know what to make of her, frightened and overawed at the same time. “I find it keeps the mind and the fingers nimble. But that’s of little concern to you.” She scrutinised Krem for a long moment, and to his credit he tried to stand straighter and look a little less lost. “Madame de Fer, and I take it you are Cremisius? Sit with us, I should like to get to know you.”

“Sure, uh, Ma’am,” Krem said, almost falling into his seat.

Vivienne smiled slightly as she took her seat again, a sign of high approval from her. She handed Alicia her ball of yarn, and in exchange for allowing her to knit uninterrupted, Vivienne would listen to her talk, provided Alicia did at least remember to breathe occasionally and tried to avoid tangents.

Krem looked incredibly uncomfortable surrounded by the old ladies, who in general took pity on him and only tried to talk to him a couple of time. He mostly stared at the scarves slowly crawling their way across the table, or the number of hats that were being spun into existence, but after half an hour he got out of his chair and slunk over to Dorian.

“Can I head home for a bit?” he asked, keeping his head down and mumbling into his collar.

Dorian opened his mouth, closed it again, and sighed. “Of course, Krem. Are you going to walk or--”

“We don’t live far, I’m fine,” he said, and quickly made his way over to the exit.

Dorian watched him go, something inexplicable settling into his gut. It had been going so well, but perhaps it was naive to expect one morning together to resolve everything. Dorian sighed again, drawing Vivienne’s eyes to him. “You mustn’t take these things so personally, darling,” she said.

“When you figure out the secret to how, please tell me.”

Vivienne hummed, the corners of her eyes crinkling in amusement, and she turned back to the cardigan she was working on. Dorian didn’t expect Krem to return to the library, or at least not until the knitting group had finished for the day. He therefore tried not to let it show when Krem walked back in with a bag over his shoulder that Dorian didn’t remember him having when he’d left. He walked past Dorian without looking up and sat in the chair he’d vacated, swinging his bag into his lap and rooting around inside. Before Dorian could think to ask, Krem pulled out a pair of knitting needles and what looked like half a stuffed animal before dumping his bag on the floor.

“Felt weird sat here doing nothing,” Krem mumbled at no one in particular.

Vivienne glanced over at Dorian, who could only shrug ineloquently. “It looks well made,” Vivienne said, turning back to Krem. “May I see it?”

Krem blushed and ducked his head still further into his collar but he handed over the toy to Vivienne. “Learnt a little from my dad. My real dad, not Bull.”

Vivienne hummed while taking her time looking over the toy. “What pattern are you using?”

“I’m not -- making it up as I go along, you know. Thinking of making it into a winged nug.”

“How very clever. I admit to having not a lot of talent at devising my own patterns,” she said as she handed it back to Krem. He looked a little starstruck at the compliment. “Improving what I’ve been given, perhaps. If once it’s finished you’ve accomplished something like a winged nug, I might be interested in purchasing the pattern from you. As well as the finished product, of course.”

“Uh, sure,” Krem said, blinking a little.

The pensioners who knitted with her took their lead from Vivienne, and with her approval they began asking Krem a great many questions about his knitting. After the first couple, when Krem had glanced around like he wasn’t sure the questions were being directed at him, he answered them confidently, smiling and even being charming. Dorian learnt that he sewed as well as knitted, and that he liked creating his own patterns because following instruction when he knew better chafed. Krem was getting more requests for patterns by the time the group meeting began to wind down, and his smile stretched from ear to ear when Vivienne said her goodbyes.

Vivienne ducked in to peck Dorian’s cheek before she left, and paused by his ear to talk into it. “I hope you're happy, darling. You deserve to be.”

“I am, strangely enough,” Dorian said, smiling at her and getting his own soft smile in return.

Krem spent the whole day at the library, knitting at the table while Alicia unspooled the yarn for him. They really were getting along, so much so that both of them looked disappointed when Dorian announced that it was approaching closing time.

Dorian dropped Krem off in front of his house, with the promise that he texted Dorian if Bull was very late getting home from his meetings and yes, he was fine, he knew how to feed himself and Dorian really didn’t need to cook him dinner as well. The short drive from Bull’s was uncharacteristically quiet as Alicia stared out the window, apparently lost in thought and not inclined for once to share them.

“Is everything OK, _figlia_?” Dorian asked when the quiet got to strange for him to bare any longer.

“Is--” she started before reconsidering. “Krem’s dad likes you, right? And you like him?”

“Of course. I like Bull very much. I talk about him all the time, remember?”

“Yeah. So you’re not gonna stop liking him, like when Candance and Julia stopped liking each other because Julia got mud on Candace’s new dress and refused to say sorry, even though it was her fault and everyone saw it?”

“No, Alicia,” Dorian said gently, glancing back at Alicia. She was giving him an imploring look, the one that usually had him buying sugary cereals and let her watch just one more episode of cartoons. “Me and Bull aren’t going to stop liking each other.”

“Good, because I like Krem, and when Candace and Julia stopped liking each other, Esther wasn’t allowed to talk to Julia, even though they were really good friends.” Alicia looked back out the window, while Dorian tried not to overthink things too much.

That night however, once Alicia was asleep and Dorian was sat in bed, it was all too easy. None of Dorian’s books were half as interesting as staring at his phone and contemplating texting Bull, even though he was probably very tired after spending all day making his case to stay in the country. As if summoned though, his phone lit up with a text. 'meetings went well. think they'll let me stay.'

'Dammit. I shall have to endeavour harder to be rid of you then.' Dorian bit his lip. 'Ignore me. I'm happy, truly.'

‘krem told me about his day at the library. sounds like a lotta fun.’

‘A ringing endorsement,’ Dorian wrote back. ‘But I’m glad he didn’t spend the whole day going stiff with boredom.’

‘he said he might be reconsidering the army. something about his knitting?’ Bull wrote. Dorian caught his breath. ‘don’t really understand it but he looks happy. thank you.’

‘I don’t know that I really did anything,’ Dorian texted. ‘You’re welcome though. We’d be happy to have him join us again. Alicia certainly would be.’

‘maybe next time you two could join us. maybe for christmas?’ There was a small pause, and Dorian couldn’t have said whether he was breathing at all as he waited. ‘maybe forever?’

“I...” Dorian said, staring at his phone, frozen in place. He then realised what his silence might look like to Bull on the other end of the conversation and cursed himself. ‘I think I’d like that. Forever.’


End file.
